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Votes have consequences, and East Syracuse taxpayers are facing them now

2012-10-16-JM-PoliceVote4.JPG

Manlius Police Officer Alex Hebert (foreground) urges voters in East Syracuse to preserve the village police department during a special vote held Oct. 16, 2012. East Syracuse Police Officer Dave Barhite (background) holds a sign to passing motorists on his side of the street. Village voters rejected a plan to dissolve the police force and rely on DeWitt for policing.
(Jim McGregor/The Post-Standard)

East Syracuse officials should revive the DeWitt policing proposal and try again with voters.

East Syracuse taxpayers last year soundly defeated a proposal to fold their village police force into the Town of DeWitt police department. The cost of their decision has now become painfully evident.

Property owners face a 22 percent increase in the property tax rate, which would make it the highest in Onondaga County. If the proposed budget is adopted, the owner of a $100,000 house would pay $291 more in village taxes in 2013-14. Had voters approved the shared services agreement, the same homeowner's taxes would have gone down by a projected $249.

The tax increase is just the beginning of the pain East Syracusans will feel. The Village Board proposes to reduce overall spending by 14 percent, cutting the budgets of every department except public works. Wages are frozen for village employees, unless raises are contractually obligated. Further savings are to come from delaying equipment purchases, scaling back sidewalk repairs, canceling the village fireworks display and shifting a summer festival to a village park.

Some who voted in favor of keeping the village police department saw it as a quality-of-life issue. They want to know their police officers by name, to see them patrolling village streets around the clock, to have them respond almost immediately to the call. By turning down the referendum 531-300, they held onto that at the cost of services that also add to the village's quality of life.

Voters made the tradeoff with their eyes open. Former Mayor Danny Liedka campaigned hard for the dissolution of his own police force, warning residents that expenses and revenues were only moving farther out of balance. He and village trustees worked out an agreement with DeWitt that appeared to enhance police protection in the village from the surrounding town's larger police force. Still, a large majority of East Syracuse voters were not persuaded.

With a 22 percent tax increase bearing down, they may be persuaded now. East Syracuse officials should revive the DeWitt policing proposal and try again with voters.

New York has nearly 4,000 local government entities, and some of the highest property taxes in the nation to support them. Government consolidation isn't the answer for each one, and the savings to taxpayers shouldn't be oversold.

Yet in this case, it made geographic and economic sense for the town of DeWitt to take over policing the village of East Syracuse -- and it still does.